Lee Hazlewood: A Stranger in This Land

The renaissance cowboy cut a wide swath through the West, and inspired a generation of songwriters

By SKYLAIRE ALFVEGREN

LA Weekly: Wednesday, October 17, 2007 - 3:00 pm

Hazlewood’s imaginative production and droll lyrical sensibility produced a string of hits with Nancy that flipped the formulaic boy/girl duet: “Some Velvet Morning,” “Summer Wine,” “I’ve Been Down So Long” and “Sand.” Her kicky go-go vixen was a perfect complement to Hazlewood’s mustachioed, hangdog visage and world-weary baritone. Lee and Nancy (1969) went platinum. Hardly “love” songs, the lyrics are sardonic, knowing, forlorn, and often dark. “If it’s a great love song, I probably didn’t write it,” he laughed.

But hit songs are the least interesting aspect of Hazlewood’s career. Once the success of the Sinatra duets dried up, he flitted from Barcelona to Helsinki, landing in Sweden for the better part of a decade. While overseas, he continued to innovate. Shelved by MGM for simply being too bizarre, Something Special (1967) was only released in Germany some 20 years later, and was finally reissued stateside by Water Records in September. The bawdy cowpoke tinsel of The Cowboy and the Lady (1969), a collaboration with Ann–Margret, spawned cowboy psychedelia. Sounding as though it was recorded on the warped wooden porch of a prairie lean-to, 1971’s Requiem for an Almost Lady wasn’t released stateside for 28 years. Hazlewood employed a syrupy croon to deliver his philosophy of love: “It’s been said that all good things are made in Heaven/But I have a feeling that the first time we said ‘I love you’ to each other/The Gods must’ve turned their backs and laughed out loud.”

Poet, fool or bum? Lee Hazlewood (Courtesy Four Service Productions)

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